How Retailers Should View Omni-Channel Millennials

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With so much change in the digital marketing space, brands must constantly redefine themselves in order to stay relevant. And since customers are changing too, marketers’ need to prioritize understanding the customer comprehensively to acquire and retain them. By this, we are referring to the omni-channel opportunity that millennial customers specifically pose. While it was just a proposed prediction in years past, the reality is that now, retailers will actually find omni-channel millennials are looking for ways to engage with the brands they are shopping with.

In the Headlines

Earlier this week, Wefi released a study on Venturebeat regarding shopping for several major “big brand” retailers. The objective of this study was to find the effect of retail apps (in addition to websites and in-store apps) on consumer yearly visits. The findings: shoppers with brands’ store apps are more engaged with the store, causing longer and more frequent monthly visits. And with larger retailers like Target now testing beacon technology when the users actually arrive in a physical location, there is potential for even more sales.

San Francisco-based Euclid Analytics released a mid year report of US retail benchmarks to highlight the trends in conversion online versus in-store. The study found that particularly with millennials, contextualized targeting with promotions has been a key up-in-coming tactic. " Millennials demand convenience—they want discounts and they want fast fulfillment," the report states. And with millennial purchasing power on the rise, it’s important to give them the value they seek, when and where they seek it.The Euclid Analytics study suggested that the trend of weather-based promotion targeting could be an area of growth for marketers. Especially with millennials constantly finding brands through different channels, this type of advanced targeting depends on a solid cleansing and implementation of location data.

Every App, Every Screen, Every Location

As we’ve discussed before, the path to purchase is now fragmented and every channel is a touchpoint that must provide moments of value for users. The best approach to making these interactions valuable to users is by establishing a cross-channel local presence.

Make it valuable- Your presence should always be of value to users. For example, you might consider optimizing your location information in a way where Google Maps can send to both mobile and tablets for users on the go Google maps send location information from desktop to mobile and tablet.

Make it contextual- Make sure that each of your locations serve a purpose when engaging with users. One way retailers have begun doing this is through app-enabled beaconing.

Make it engaging- Your advertising does not need to bombard millennials to drive conversions. Focus on powering your ads through mobile and social apps like Yelp and Foursquare, where the information will be useful.

Beyond making sure that each touch point on the path to purchase is optimized, your brand must become familiarized with local-mobile trends to compete with other brands vying for the attention of millennials. Brands today must be fully optimized across local across what we call the, “6 pillars of local search optimization.”

Take a look at our recent Brand Battle in collaboration with Street Fight to see the importance of optimizing for local across all pillars and beat your competition.